A Hive Of Scum And Villainy
by xahra99
Summary: First impressions of Rabanastre, seen through the eyes of a young and very impressionable Fran. Pregame.


A Hive Of Scum And Villainy-a Final Fantasy Twelve fan fiction.

'The moral dangers of foreign residence are most imminent. You are then not only more than ever, and farther than ever, removed from parental inspection and restraint—but you are removed also from the control of friends and of public opinion. You will have an opportunity—if you choose to embrace it—for gratifying to the greatest excess every criminal appetite.'

John Angell James, _The Young Man Leaving Home_.(1844)

'You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.'

Obi-Wan Kenobi, _Star Wars-A New Hope_.

* * *

Later in her life, Fran would always be able to pinpoint the exact moment when she began to doubt the sanity of her new venture. It occurred somewhere in the Golmore Jungle, between a flowering peach tree, a whitethorn bush, and three panthers. It was raining hard. The rain washed the blood from the long slash along her left arm and beaded in the panthers' purple fur.

Fran slung her bow across her back and drew a two-handed axe from her belt. The axe was double-bladed, battle-scarred and wickedly sharp. Its curved edges ran with water and glinted in the dim storm-light as Fran held it up, two-handed.

The first panther snarled, and sprang.

Fran pivoted on one high-arched foot. She slashed the axe downwards in a diagonal arc. The cutting edge seemed to only brush the panther, but the animal's sinewy leap faltered. Crimson blood blossomed in its fur. It gave a harsh cry, gurgled up foam and died.

That left two. Both attacked simultaneously.

Fran struck with the flat of the axe. That left one monster to take care of. She twisted and came up hard against the rough bark of the tree behind her as the last panther's claws dug a neat furrow down the calf of her right leg. The animal was just about to bury its teeth in the exposed, bleeding flesh when Fran brought the spike of the axe up under its chin. The panther's teeth clashed together. Its eyes glazed over and its body arced into the bushes, where it disappeared.

Fran leaned her head against the warm bark of the peach tree.

, she thought. 

She used the axe-blade to peel the hide from the two remaining corpses, rolled them up and tied them to her pack with a piece of vine. Rainwater from the large dish-shaped leaves of the tree served to rinse the blood from her axe and moss from the forest floor polished the blade to a shine.

The axe had been the first human artefact Fran had ever seen. She had found it buried in the ribcage of a panther in the Needlebrake, next to its owner's horned helmet. From the look of the skull, he'd been human. Fran yanked the weapon out and held it up to the light, admiring the intricate engraving etched into the rusted blade. The shaft was as thick as her wrist. Dried blood caked the edge.

"You know." Adah said over Fran's shoulder. "No metal."

Fran shrugged and let the axe drop from her hand. It buried itself finger-deep in the mossy forest floor.

Hume artefacts, culture and humes themselves were discouraged by the priestesses of the Tree. Moogles, bangaa and seeq were tolerated, as long as they brought items to trade and set up their camps outside Eruyt's bridges. Humes were disrespectful. They asked questions. They _stared_.

Still, Fran had had the opportunity to talk to a few humes before she'd finally decided to leave the village. They spoke fast, and mostly said unhelpful things like 'Would you like to buy it then? I'm cutting my throat here.', 'Don't head out there, it's full of monsters' and on one memorable-and short lived- occasion; ' So-how much do I have to pay you for you to take your clothes off?'

Despite the negligible intelligence of the humes, Fran had made up her mind to leave the Wood and enter their world.

She had retrieved the axe on her next mission into the Wood and hidden it in her hut. Over time, she had honed and scoured the blade to fighting sharpness. It had taken four years, which had been just enough time for Fran to make her mind up about leaving the village. Viera took a long time to make their mind up about things, but they never changed their minds.

Jote had shouted. Mjrn had wept. Her fellow Warders had argued, and when they found that they couldn't change Fran's mind they had ignored her, the way most viera ignored things that did not concern them.

Nobody had watched her leave. Viera tradition forbade it, and viera tradition was set as hard and rigid as granite. Every once in a while a viera would leave the wood, and the rest of the village would hide themselves away in their dwellings, and they would pretend they did not see. Nobody ever came back and eventually, 'leaving the village' became a euphemism for having died. Maybe some of them did die. After her experiences with the fauna of the jungle, Fran did not doubt it.

She wrapped a lump of panther flesh in leaves and stowed it in her pack. She used the rest of the water to rinse her face, arms and the gash in her leg, replaced the axe in her belt and set off again.

She ate the meat for her evening meal, much later, in the tiny clearing that joined the paths that the viera called Chained Light to the southernmost reaches of the Ozmose Plains. Fran knew fourteen ways to cook panther flesh exceptionally, and a further ten ways to cook it passably. She didn't know a single way of igniting soaked deadwood in the rain., and so she had to eat the meat raw. It was not exceptional, or even passable. It was horrible. Fran was used to horrible, but horrible with her sisters and the Wood was far easier to bear than horrible alone in the rain.

It rained for the whole of the four-day trip, right through the Golmore jungle, the Ozmose and Giza plains. It rained until the brooks were overflowing and most of the smaller Giza rabbits drowned. It was raining in the desert when Fran reached Rabanastre, and that was the least surprising thing about the city.

She had expected a Tree, despite the desert, simply because she had no other point of reference save for a few viera tales and Eruyt itself. Rabanastre was no tree. Insofar as it resembled any living organism, it was a nest of termites, ugly and crawling with life. It stank of swamp water.

Fran limped towards the nearest gate. The rain had long since rinsed the blood from her hair and fur, and the guards on duty waved her through with a second (and third, and fourth) glance at her ragged outfit. She followed the road from Southgate into the city.

It was a blur of exhaustion and heat-steam. There were a few humes sheltering in doorways and glimpsed through the misty windows of buildings. There were no other viera, although she was to learn later that this was not unusual in the rainy season, when the viera kept themselves to their own quarters.

There was a sharp tug at her sleeve.

'Miss?"

The accent was guttural, with too many vowels. Fran looked down, and then further down.. A small grubby child of indeterminate sex stared up at her with exotic blue eyes.

"You need a place to stay?" it said. "We have good beds. Clean, too. And cheap. Only a hundred gil."

Fran shrugged. She had been warned of the strange hume custom that was coin, but had no idea whether that was a reasonable price or not. 'I've no money."

"Two hides." The child pointed to the wrapped furs strapped to Fran's pack. "Best house in the city. Promise."

A girl, Fran decided. She ducked under the cover of the nearest shop's leather awning, and regarded the child through locks of soaked white hair. "This is how things are done here?"

"Sure." the girl said.

Fran unshouldered her pack and handed her the hides.

The child rubbed the pelts between finger and thumb, and tucked them underneath her arm. "Wait here. I'll get them to air the beds. Be right back."

Fran waited for nearly an hour before she worked out the girl wasn't coming back. By then, it was nearly night. Around her the city filled with workers finishing their shifts. The desert light darkened to turquoise and lights ignited all around her, darkening the doorways of shops. Fran heard a giggle coming from one of them. Music played softly from a window. Crowds of brightly dressed humes wandered past, partners and drinks in hand.

Fran stood beneath her awning and studied them.

They were a short and noisy people, with none of the viera grace. Superficially, they had the same shape as viera, although there were small and subtle differences. The height. The build. The pale skin. The single pair of nipples, high up on their chests. The unnatural, hair-covered spaces on their head where ears should be. Flat feet; tiny, useless nails, stubby squat limbs, and hair in all kinds of colours; red, brown, black, wheat-gold, none at all. Every part of their bodies were covered with strangely-tailored clothing; their feet encased in flat and ugly shoes. The bangaa, seeq and moogles were equally disturbing, but less strange. She saw a pair of viera from the shadows, and stifled the impulse to rush out and greet them. Even if her sisters had taken on city ways, such a public display of desperation would be taken as the worst of bad manners.

None of them gave her a second glance.

She found a shop by the simple expedient of wandering into buildings until she found somebody who seemed pleased to see her. The proprietor eyed the tall figure staggering towards him with alarm and not a little pity.

"Can I help you?"

Fran held out her pack. She licked her lips. "I want to make an exchange."

The shopkeeper looked puzzled for a second, and then his brow cleared. "You want to sell something?"

"Precisely." Fran said. She set the pack on the counter and fished out her last panther pelt, a few magicite stones and a handful of chocobo feathers. They sat on the polished wood, a motley and forlorn assortment. "Give me your coin, and I will give you these goods."

The shopkeeper drew closer to the tattered items. "First time in town, girl?"

Fran nodded.

"As if I had to ask." the bangaa muttered. He stroked the barbs of a black chocobo feather lovingly, and sighted down the quill. "Let me guess. You've got nowhere to stay, no job, no money, and you want me to cut you a deal."

Fran nodded again. There was a pot plant on the corner of the desk, the first piece of vegetation she'd seen since entering the city. She gravitated towards it and felt some comfort in the sight of the green leaves.

The shopkeeper sighed. He pointed to a ragged price list nailed to one wall. "I can't go above five hundred for this lot."

Fran looked puzzled. Viera didn't handle coin. Life was complicated enough as it was.

The man looked at her face, and sighed again. "That's a bargain." he told her.

Silence.

"A deal better than anybody else in this damn city would make. You want to live here, you've gotta do things our way. And that includes bargaining."

"You'll give me coin?'

The bangaa scooped her goods from the counter into a wicker basket. He shoved two fingers between his lips and whistled. A smaller hume wearing a leather apron dived out from a back room and took the basket. He turned, took one look at Fran, and dropped it.

Fran looked down at herself.

Viera had less complicated customs about clothes than humes did. They wore enough to cover the essential parts, and to protect them from the weather. Fran's clothing had been skimpy enough by hume standards to start with, and after four days of rain and panther attacks, it was nearly nonexistent.

"I was going to get onto that later." the shopkeeper muttered. He emptied a handful of yellow coins into Fran's pack and held it out to her. "Buy yourself some new clothes, love. And don't just stand there-count it! Not everyone is as honest and law-abiding as meself, you know? Don't want to get ripped off."

Fran yanked the pack towards her and began counting the coins. They were cheap bronze, despite their name, in hundred-unit denominations. There were five of them. She looked up and found the shopkeeper holding a scrap of hide out towards her.

"What's this?"

"A lodging-house. They're clean, and cheap. Woman's a friend of mine. She lets to viera, sometimes. Straight on, turn left over the bridge, and keep walking until you get to the bazaar. Ask for Arjie. Someone'll show you the way."

Fran nodded and left, stumbling on a broken heel.

"Won't last five minutes here." Miguel muttered, behind her.

The hostel wasn't hard to find, and there was a room free. Fran took it for a week, two hundred gil straight down. The view from her window was of canvas awnings and other people's laundry, and the noise was almost physical in its intensity.

It was the fourteenth year of King Raminas's reign, and Rabanastre was a city of peace and prosperity. And, more importantly, of merchants. Fran had never dreamed that so many things could be bought and sold. It took her the best part of forty years and a five-year acquaintance with Balthier Bunansa to understand that humes were underhanded sons-of- bitches who would sell the city if they could find a bidder. They would trade with anyone, and anything.

The Muthru Bazaar of Rabanastre was the largest street-market in the free world.

There were stalls full of bales of wool and caskets of feathers, salted chocobo meat and hides and rare wines. There were weapons and potions and spells galore. There were people everywhere, hunters and merchants and nobles. There were fire-jugglers and dream-walkers, prostitutes and traders and thieves. And now, there was a viera. One who closed the windows against the intolerable noise and wished that she was somewhere else. Somewhere with more plants.

After a while, Fran got up from her bed and shook out her clothes fastidiously. Like most traditional viera garb, they were pale leather and left most of her body open to the cool winds.

A plan was beginning to form in her head, and she would need new clothes. Clothes, and armour. Something dramatic, to match the way the little hume had looked at her. Something new. Something different. She wasn't sure exactly what she was looking for, but she was sure she would know it when she found it.

She did, eventually, in a little shop off the southern plaza three days later.

The dressmaker's was one of the best and most discreet establishments in Rabanastre. It catered to rich clientele of a certain persuasion, and this did not include ragged viera with rolls of paper tucked underneath one arm. This may have explained the slightly strained expression on the proprietor's face as she glided over to meet Fran. "Yes?"

Fran glanced around at the silk and leather, lace and ribbons. "I need an outfit." she explained.

"A dress?"

"An outfit. A hat. Shoes. I have a design." Fran patted the roll of parchment.

The proprietor's internal calculator threw up pound signs. "Very good, milady. Custom-made. A much superior fit. Would milady like to see some samples? Silk is very popular this season. Or damask. "

"I'm going to need something a little more hardwearing. Leather. The best. Mail."

The shopkeeper smoothly switched gears. "What colour would milady like?"

"I want black."

"Very good. And may I suggest, a touch of lace? Black goes with all colours. For you, perhaps white? Something to bring out your hair?"

"Just black." Fran said. "All over."

"All right." said the shopkeeper, nonplussed. "Black it is. But I only have one hide."

Fran unrolled her design. "That will not be a problem." she said precisely.

The outfit cost her all the money she had, but it was worth it. Suited and booted, Fran was faced with that most perennial of hume problems, of how to gain more money. Hunting was out. Rabanastre's legions of hunters had wiped out much of the larger game surrounding the city, and Fran had no wish to range further afield. She had nothing to sell, and few of the skills that were required to make any significant amount of money by legal means. She believed that humes had more direct ways to solve the problem.

She was out of cash and nearly out of options when she saw the child by the airfield. There were many children in Rabanastre, and viera found hume faces as difficult to memorise as hume did viera, but this one was different. Fran stretched one spike-fingered arm out and caught the girl by the collar as she rushed past.

"Hey!' The child spun, fists flailing uselessly. She caught sight of Fran's face, quieted for a second, then started flailing even more violently. "Put me down."

Fran let go, although she caught the child by one foot before she reached the flagstones. Viera had a higher metabolism than humes, accounting both for their lean physique and their higher body temperature, and the girl's ankle was chilly against her hand.

The child's voice was slightly muffled by the layers of clothing falling over her face. "Yes. I know. I ripped you off. And I'm sorry. Now can you please put me down?"

"You are a thief?" Fran asked.

"We're not thieves. We're more like pirates. Thieving's a sideline. "

"Perfect." Fran said. She flipped the girl rightside up and caught her by her collar. "Teach me."

The child met Fran's crimson eyes and looked down. "You do know it's illegal, right?"

I didn't think viera went in for that kind of thing."

Fran shrugged. There were all kinds of viera. She had decided to be the other kind. "Do you have a master?"

The girl glared at her. "He's up there." she said, and pointed.

Fran looked up, and found herself staring at the belly of an airship, like a great white whale.

"We're looking for hands." the girl said. "Have you ever been to Balfonheim?"

"Balfonheim?" Fran asked.

* * *

First posted on the 2007 femgenficathon challenge on livejournal for the prompt: _The worst has happened-it's rather liberating. _


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